


6 - Betrayed

by BubbaKnowlton



Series: Whumptober 2018 [Disko kid edition] [6]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Child Injury, M/M, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 18:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16372646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubbaKnowlton/pseuds/BubbaKnowlton
Summary: Honestly, Ben thinks, it's like the Prophets are trying to kill their son. / Whumptober 2018-Goodness,Joey thought, hysterically, as blood spurted out of what was left of his arm,Dad and Father aren’t going to be happy about this.He really hadn’t meant to break his oath with the twins, but... Well, his father tended to complicate things.





	6 - Betrayed

**Author's Note:**

> for some reason i struggled to write this?? lmao that's why it's. kind of messy  
> the ending is inspired by how i was imagining how Joey would look if he survived to adulthood, and I thought it would be really cool if he had a bionic arm.

**6 - Betrayed**

Joey looked around as people exited the transport, waiting for his friends to arrive. He’d gotten a message a few weeks ago saying they all needed to gather, and he was excited to see how they planned to fulfill their oath to each other. The twins hadn’t been entirely sure about what the ritual really meant, but were certain that it was like a blood oath. In times of need, they would assist each other, they decided.

And if they broke their promise, they could be killed.

Joey didn’t plan on breaking the promise. The twins were training to be warriors, and although he’d tried learning some defense in the holodeck, it always seemed to glitch when he was in, and after a multitude of injuries, he’d stopped going. He wouldn’t be able to fight back very well if they attacked him.

Besides, his dad had told him that although he thought it was foolish of him to take such a serious oath as a game, it was very important to keep promises. Provided it didn’t hurt anyone.

Finally, he spotted someone he recognized. He grinned, and ran up to him. “Satal!” The Vulcan looked at him, face as impassive as ever. 

“Greetings, Joseph.” Satal held up his hand and did the Vulcan salute. Joey returned the gesture. “Have any of the others arrived?”

“Eyon and Ethal haven’t come yet, but they should be here today in two hours. The others couldn’t get the message, I planned to go get them once the twins are here.”

“I see. Will we wait here for them?”

“I’m sure I could talk for two hours, but I’m not feeling particularly Cardassian today.” Satal raised an eyebrow. “Cardassians are known for loving to talk, so whenever I don’t feel like talking for an extended period of time, my dad says I’m not feeling Cardassian.”

“Fascinating. I have found that many of the humans I encounter also enjoy speaking when it is not necessary.” He looked around. “Do you have some way we can spend our time while we wait for the next shuttle to arrive?”

Joey nodded. “I thought we could go and see my big sister, Ziyal! She’ll be happy to be introduced to one of my friends.”

“Is your sister a hybrid like you?”

“Yes! No. She’s a Bajoran-Cardassian hybrid, not a human-Cardassian. We share the same father. Come on, she should be in the replimat about now, eating lunch with two of her friends.” Joey started walking, and Satal followed. “You know one of her friends, Doctor Bashir.”

“Yes, I recall.”

“Her other friend is the station’s local tailor. He’s Cardassian, his name is Elim Garak.”

“Do you see many Cardassians?”

“No. Just him and my father. Satal, do you have any siblings?”

“Yes. I have a younger sister, T’lir. She is an infant. Do you only have your older sister?”

“I have an older human half brother named Jake. Then I have seven Cardassian siblings. I’ve never met them. Ziyal has, she said they hated her.”

“You are the youngest in your family?”

He hoped he was. “As far as I know.”

“You suspect you have other siblings?”

“Well, between you and me,” and about everyone on the station and Bajor, Joey knew, “my Cardassian father is a bit...”

Satal nodded. “I understand.”

-

The two hours he’d spent with Satal went by very nicely. Joey liked the Vulcan, and was starting to think of him as a friend. They’d met with Eyon and Ethal when their shuttle arrived, and Joey decided not to ask any of them why they weren’t with their parents. Once the four of them had greeted each other, Joey led them to go and find the remaining three members of their pact.

Ellie was glad to escape her caretaker, and Min and Taza were grateful for the chance to skip working in their parents’ shop.

The twins had called them because they needed help going through a ritual in order to prove to their older cousin that they were indeed warriors. However, they didn’t know much about it, and needed help training for it.

Satal had found information on a computer terminal about it, and Joey secured a reservation in a holosuite for them. As he walked away from the bar, Odo approached him. “Joey, a word.”

“Hello, Constable.”

“I just received a message from Vulcan saying that your friend Satal ran away from home. You wouldn’t know why he would do that, would you?”

Joey tried to remember what Mr. Garak had once said to him when he asked how to be a better liar. Sometimes, telling an obvious truth would work better, act as a distraction. “Well, our Klingon friends sent us a message saying that we needed to fulfill part of our oath, to all meet here on the station.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

“Bye, Constable.”

-

 _Goodness,_ Joey thought, hysterically, as blood spurted out of what was left of his arm, _Dad and Father aren’t going to be happy about this._ He really hadn’t meant to break his oath with the twins, but... Well, his father tended to complicate things. He couldn’t very well pledge his fealty to Eyon and Ethal to a few of their adult relatives while his father and sister were standing nearby. So he’d refused, and Satal cautioned that he would be breaking their oath.

The twins had been furious with him, to say the least, and had quietly growled at him that they expected him to own up to breaking their oath.

So they’d gone back to the holosuite a few hours later, when his parents were distracted by an argument, and Satal had turned off the safeties. Then, in front of all his friends and the twins’ uncle, father, and cousins, he’d been thoroughly beaten into the ground. Certainly, he’d tried to fight back, but he wasn’t experienced with fighting at all. The twins were, and he couldn’t hope to beat them with a bat’leth, especially not both at once.

“Cardassian, do you yield?” one of the twins hissed at him.

It didn’t hurt. Somehow, it didn’t hurt. Joey stared at the blood puddle. It was a murky red, an ugly color. Nausea churned in his stomach, but he managed to say, “I yield.”

“Good. Farewell, _traitor._ For your sake, I hope we do not meet again.”

“Joey!” After the Klingons left, Ellie finally ran up to him, dropping down to his side. “Your arm!”

“I- I don’t feel anything.”

“That’s a lot of blood... Satal, what do we do?” Ellie

“Call for help.”

“No!” Joey said. He didn’t want them all to get in trouble. “No, don’t call for help.”

“It is illogical to refuse help.” Satal frowned a bit.

“Just- just stop the bleeding. Pressure, right? Don’t call for help. I’ll tell the computer to disregard your command.”

“The bleeding from a wound of that severity will not be stopped by application of pressure.”

“Then- then I guess this isn’t a bad way to die, right? I shamed Eyon and Ethal in front of the head of their house, broke our blood oath. Okay, it’s starting to hurt. Ow, ah-”

“I- I know how we can stop the bleeding,” Min said, trembling. Taza clung to him, tears in her eyes. “My brother lost his leg during the occupation, in the Resistance. They burned the wound. It stopped the bleeding, and he’s fine now.”

“With the safeties off, we could create a fire. An... illogical course of action, but it will... get the job done, as the humans say.”

-

“Joseph! What in hell were you thinking?”

His parents were furious with him, just as he thought they would be. After getting the wound burned, Ellie had snuck into the infirmary and stolen a hypospray and dermal regenerator. She’d injected him, and he’d been pleasantly numb. Satal had used the regenerator to heal his skin, and mended all his other wounds. 

Ellie, Min, and Taza had walked him back to his dad’s quarters. Satal bid them farewell as they left the holosuites and informed them that he would be turning himself into security so they could send him home to Vulcan. “Vulcans do not lie, so it is imperative that I leave the station before I am questioned about what happened today.”

Unsteady due to the medication, he’d crawled into bed and fallen asleep.

He’d woken up in the infirmary. It happened so often that it wasn’t even a surprise to open his eyes to too bright lights and sterile walls. Joey felt much better, and what remained of his arm also looked well treated. Satal and Ellie had done a fair job, considering they had no medical training, but this was Doctor Bashir’s work. 

Once they were sure he was awake and lucid, and not in any pain, his fathers had been upset with him. He thought for a moment before answering his dad, “I guess I thought I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

“Your arm is gone, I think that’s worth bothering me for.”

“Or me.” His dad gave his father a look that Joey was certain meant ‘ _that’s not very helpful._ ’

“It didn’t hurt.”

“Because you were given a dangerous amount of triptacederine.”

“Oh.” He sat up, and looked at his arms. It should have been more of a shock, Joey thought. But it wasn’t. “Did my friends tell you what happened?”

“The Bajoran children told Odo,” his father answered. “And your human friend admitted it as well.”

“What’d they say?”

“That you broke your oath with those Klingon boys, and let them hurt you to restore their honor, and then refused to get help. Ellie said she treated you.” So they didn’t know Satal was involved. Joey wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

He nodded. “That sounds right. Will I get a new arm?”

“Possibly. A biogenic arm would be difficult to make, and...” His dad glanced at his father. “Well, it’d be complicated.”

“That’s okay, Dad. I think I’ll be fine without it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow/talk to me on Tumblr: @oblio-k


End file.
